All First Nations invited to 50th Anniversary of Aboriginal Embassy, 26-28 January 2022

25 June 2021

Ghillar, Michael Anderson, Convenor of the Sovereign Union, last surviving member of the founding four of the Aboriginal Embassy and Head of State of the Euahlayi Peoples Republic introduces the program for the 50th Anniversary of the Aboriginal Embassy.

An invitation is extended to all First Nations Peoples across Australia to bring their flags, aspirations, ideas and strategies for achieving self-determination to Canberra, January 26-28 2022.

The 50th Anniversary of the Aboriginal Embassy is the greatest opportunity for the grassroots voices to be truly heard as one.

The Australian courts now recognise the legitimacy and authority of First Nations’ Law and customs within this Country. This moment in history now offers us the opportunity to form the First Nations government under our Law and culture. We know and the colonisers know that they are and always have been a military occupation of our lands and waters. International law now dictates that illegal occupation of other Peoples’ territories is not tolerated in the modern world.

Our status as sovereign Nations is confirmed by the fact that any and all colonial laws made in this country that impact upon us as a ‘race’ can only be executed under Section 51(26) of the Australian Constitution, the ‘race power’. In respect of State laws, there are no constitutional rights that give the parliament powers to make laws in respect to the first inhabitants and original possessors of this land. To the contrary, as a result of demands from England, we were to be ‘protected’ from the dregs of the colonial society. These are facts. These are truths. It is these truths that give us the power and authority, under our Law and custom to form our own government.

Colonial education is not an authority to make decisions for our Peoples. It is this assimilating process that the colonial authorities have been using to divide and assimilate us through a western educated mindset.

The 50th Anniversary of the Aboriginal Embassy now gives us an opportunity in time to make our Declaration for our decolonisation and independence from the coloniser’s rule over us.

The 50th Anniversary of the Aboriginal Embassy is fast approaching and I have no doubt that there are many people out there who are wondering what plans are being made for the 50th. Plans are well underway and will be finalised soon.

First Nations have been resisting the invading colonisers since 1770. As young Aboriginal people we were influenced by own People’s endeavours to gain the attention of, not just local politicians, but also the international community at large, in respect to our plight here in Australia.

Leading up to this 50th Anniversary, we acknowledge and respect with great reverence the martyrdom and resistance of our forebears to correct the wrongdoings perpetrated against our Peoples and to free ourselves from being imprisoned within our own lands.

It is time to acknowledge some of the major efforts in the modern era to gain some type of ‘equality’ and civil rights under the military occupation, efforts such as the Day of Mourning; the local Progress Associations; the Pilbara Strike for equal wages; the Gurindji Walk-Off; Palm Island strikes; William Cooper’s efforts; NT Bark Petition to the King of England; the Yorta Yorta Cummeragunga protest and their crossing from NSW to Victoria and the establishment of FCAATSI Federal Council Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and their efforts in promoting the ‘Yes’ vote for the 1967 Referendum, just to name a few.

It was the Gurindji Walk-Off and their return to their own lands that focused attention directly on Land Rights. For us a young people, this was the flame that lit the fire for the modern political struggle. Land Rights was the beacon that shone throughout this land. We were also influenced by other liberation struggles going on around the world, such as Native Americans fighting for their Treaty rights; Aotearoa Maori Waitangi treaty rights, while other Maori were arguing that the Waitangi Treaty did not impact on them and that they had more rights not covered by the treaty. There were also the Black Panther Movement in America and Martin Luther King’s non-violent approach to civil liberties. Learning from these struggles, we set our own pathway of protesting against the military occupation of Australia by the British, which is still the case today, and this military occupation is now cleverly disguised as a democracy.

Our Black Power and Black Panther movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s were about letting Australia know that they are getting rich by exploiting stolen lands, which are proceeds of crimes. The crimes we speak of are the genocidal practices committed against our Peoples from east to west and north to south.

One example of a genocidal military order was Governor Macquarie’s assault against First Nations of the Sydney area, including the Murningong and Gandagarra, in April 1816. The Order declared:

On any occasion of seeing or falling in with the Natives, either in bodies or singly, they are to be called on, by your friendly Native Guides, to surrender themselves to you as Prisoners of War. If they refuse to do so, make the least show of resistance, or attempt to run away from you, you will fire upon and compell them to surrender, breaking and destroying the spears, clubs, and waddies of all those you take Prisoners. Such Natives as happen to be killed on such occasions, if grown up men, are to be hanged up on trees in conspicuous situations, to strike the Survivors with the greater terror. On all occasions of your being obliged to have recourse to offensive and coercive measures, you will use every possible precaution to save the lives of the Native Women and Children, but taking as many of them as you can Prisoners.

These murderous genocidal feats were not just committed by the military, but also by private squatters, who not only squatted illegally on our lands, but also killed our people if the sovereign owners dared to challenge them.

This country has a Black history, or should I say, an horrendous white history.

This history is yet to be faced.

This coming 50th Anniversary will help to trigger a process for us to put together senior Elder tribunals to have all persons who committed crimes against us to come before chosen tribunals. These tribunals will sit and hear evidence of the colonial killings throughout this island continent. We cannot rely on our oppressors and occupiers to be truthful. We all know this history has yet to be faced. No matter how the invaders wish to colour it, they will have to face their own demons. Whilst I say this, I also acknowledge that at least 45% of the current Australian population are newcomers from other lands and do not have Anglo origins, however, they all still benefit from living on stolen land and the wealth it creates.

The youth movements from 1968 to this day are focusing on the need for this Country to be decolonised from British rule. The Australia Act 1986 does not impact First Nations Peoples. Its impact is upon the invader society, which has to live under British autocratic rule. This autocracy can be understood when the population realises that the head of power is reserved to the British Crown through the Governors and a Governor-General, who sit and preside over government decision-making at the executive level. This means that those who are elected to parliament can only exercise powers with the approval of the sovereign monarch through her delegated Governors and Governor-General. Those who call themselves Australians must realise that, despite electing candidates to parliament, these elected officials cannot exercise full legal authority, without being sworn into power by the monarch’s appointed Governors or Governor-General, who act in her stead. Just look at all the laws in this country, whether they be state, territory or federal and you will see that they say that they govern in right of the Crown. This makes Australia a continuing federation of colonies.

Wake Up colonial Australia! You do not have your own sovereignty.

Our First Nations’ Sovereignty Movement here in Australia is now challenging this very system. As First Nations Peoples we are not British. We do not have Australian citizenship. They just turn a blind eye to this and attempt to permit equal suffrage. Our people have a lot to learn in order to assert our position as sovereign Nations and Peoples with confident authority, and so embrace our right to be self-determining.

The 1970s movement of establishing Aboriginal housing companies, legal services and medical services were acts of self-determination and it was our forthrightness and determination during this period that made these things possible. Early childhood education was soon to follow, but when we look around now so much of this effort has been undone. The organisations were undone by traitors in our ranks, creating factional divisions. This was viewed by the governments as a lack of community support, which was a key factor government officials fastened onto, in order to bring down organisations travelling successfully on the path to self-determination.

It is sad to see the total collapse of community-based self-determining programs at the grassroots level, in favour of regionalising command centres, which deliver government-funded services, under government approved strategies within our communities around this country. This denies true self-determination at the grassroots level.

The 50th Anniversary of the Aboriginal Embassy will also focus on the fact we won our Land Rights arguments, only to see Land Rights fall because of our treacherous traitors consented to Native Title, which is a top-heavy racially discriminatory piece of legislation, separating us from the same common law rights as the rest of Australia. The Federal government used section 51(26) of the Australian Constitution, the ‘race power’, to manufacture racially discriminatory laws that target the limiting of rights for First Nations Peoples. But when you look deeply, these rights do not reflect similar or greater rights than what the common law offers the rest of Australian society, e.g. native title ‘exclusive possession’ lands do not have an economic value and ‘non-exclusive possession’ native title lands mean that it is compulsory for native title holders to step aside and not protest against others using these lands and waters. I must add that non-Aboriginal people can use the land for economic purposes, but we cannot.

Let me just go one step further. Under the Native Title Act regimes, native title holders do not own nor control the royalty monies generated from the extraction of resources from their own land. Instead, these monies are placed in trust accounts administered by non-Aboriginal trustees and, in some circumstances, government and mining personnel sit as overlords of these monies and have the power to veto how these monies can be spent. What is even more shameful and disgusting is the fact that the trust beneficiaries are not permitted to receive cash when royalty shares are distributed. Instead they get purchase orders and must identify how they will spend their own money. These purchase orders can only be spent in designated stores.

We are being ripped off big time on so many fronts. Close the Gap reports show that the statistics are not improving in most criteria. Let’s be very frank, they are not achieving the set goals simply because the goals belong to the white man’s designed program of assimilation, which we reject at every level.

We make our own decisions for our future. This is not a decision for anyone else.

Sovereignty was never ceded in any way shape or form and, in case the governments and their Uncle Toms and Aunty Marys haven’t got the message yet, we do not as a whole agree with the pre-written Statement from the Heart. Those promoting the foolish notion that we Peoples seek to be included in the Constitution of the militarily-occupied State are absolute nut-cases and out of touch with grassroots consciousness.

Our Uncle Toms, Aunty Marys and government planners are so far out of touch, that they think we are still uneducated to the devious tactics and strategies of the colonial powers’ intention to assimilate us into a foreign regime and thereby maintain power over our lands, waters and natural resources.

The program for the 50th Anniversary of the Aboriginal Embassy is to invite all First Nations to bring their flags, aspirations, ideas and strategies for achieving self-determination to Canberra, January 26-28 2022.

Let us determine in a three-day setting our future as First Nations Peoples. We will not be told any more of what ‘they’ want to do for us. Instead we will tell them what we want and we will decide how we will achieve our own liberation from the occupying military regimes.

This is an opportunity for us across this country to form the First Nations government under our Law and customs. We will show how the Songlines do in fact create unity amongst the many. Our Law cannot be changed or interfered with by any parliamentary or legal system within this Country. The authorities know this and we must emphasise our right to be self-governing.

So, this 50th year of that silent confrontation established by four men, now creates an opportunity for Australia to truly hear the voices of the silent majority of First Nations Peoples of this Country, and we invite all true supporters to be with us on this momentous occasion.

Contact: Ghillar Michael Anderson
Convenor of the Sovereign Union,
Head of State of the Euahlayi Peoples Republic
The only surviving founder of the Aboriginal Embassy in 1972